Tickets for welterweight-stacked UFC 158 in Montreal on sale Jan. 19

Georges St-Pierre will get his wish, and he’ll get it in front of his home fans once again.

The UFC this past week made official a welterweight title fight for St-Pierre (23-2 MMA, 17-2 UFC) against heated rival Nick Diaz (26-8 MMA, 7-5 UFC) in a bout that already is more than a year in the making.

“UFC 158: St-Pierre vs. Diaz,” like the champ’s most recent title defense win over Carlos Condit a month ago, will take place at Bell Centre in Montreal, St-Pierre’s longtime home and training base.

In addition to the title fight, UFC 158 will feature two other key fights in the 170-pound division. Johny Hendricks (14-1 MMA, 9-1 UFC), the man who thought he earned the next shot at St-Pierre with a one-punch, first-round knockout of Martin Kampmann at UFC 154 right before GSP beat Condit, will face Jake Ellenberger (28-6 MMA, 7-2 UFC). And Rory MacDonald (14-1 MMA, 5-1 UFC), a St-Pierre teammate at Tristar Gym, gets the rematch against Condit (28-6 MMA, 5-2 UFC) that he asked for after his win earlier this month over B.J. Penn.

Tickets go on sale to the general public on Saturday, Jan. 19, and UFC Fight Club members and e-newsletter subscribers, as usual, likely will have opportunities to purchase tickets early in the two days prior to the public on-sale. Ticket prices and sale times will be announced in the coming weeks.

St-Pierre was scheduled to meet Diaz for the title at UFC 137. But when Diaz no-showed a pair of pre-event news conferences, UFC President Dana White yanked Diaz from the title shot and inserted Condit. St-Pierre, though, went down with a knee injury and Condit decided to wait for him. In the meantime, Diaz fought Condit’s original opponent, B.J. Penn, and beat him decisively enough that White ordered up that fight instead of GSP-Condit. It was booked for UFC 143.

But when St-Pierre again injured his knee badly enough to require ACL surgery, an interim title fight between Condit and Diaz was set. Condit won that fight, then lost the title unification bout to St-Pierre this past month. Meanwhile, Diaz has been on suspension after testing positive for marijuana metabolites after the loss to Condit – but he has consistently been under St-Pierre’s skin, enough that he asked the UFC to make Diaz his next title defense, even though Diaz will be coming off a loss and a yearlong suspension.

“Georges St-Pierre asked to fight Nick Diaz because he knows they have unfinished business, and Nick Diaz agrees,” White stated.

St-Pierre is on a 10-fight win streak that includes regaining his welterweight title from Matt Serra at UFC 83. Since then, his title defenses have come against Jon Fitch, Penn, Thiago Alves, Dan Hardy, Josh Koscheck, Jake Shields and Condit. Now he’ll look to make it eight straight defenses against the former Strikeforce welterweight champ.

“There’s been a lot of talk about who I should fight next. but this was really the only choice for me,” St-Pierre stated. “He’s made it personal, and I personally can’t wait.”

Diaz, who left the UFC following wins over Josh Neer and Gleison Tibau in 2006 and fought for PRIDE, DREAM, EliteXC and Strikeforce, had been on an 11-fight streak before his controversial loss to Condit at UFC 143. But even had the judges seen the fight his way, as many fans and media members did, the positive drug test following the fight would have overturned a win.

“This is the fight I want,” Diaz stated. “I want to go out there and beat Georges St-Pierre in Montreal and show that I’m the best welterweight in the world.”

Hendricks, of course, would have something to say about that. He has won five straight – and after his win over Kampmann, he said he wouldn’t fight next unless it was for the title. His win over Kampmann was his second one-pounch knockout in his past three fights, including a 12-second dismantling of former title challenger Fitch at UFC 141. The Kampmann stoppage came in just 46 seconds, and “Bigg Rigg” also has wins over Koscheck, Mike Pierce and T.J. Waldburger in his five-fight run.

But despite saying he only wanted to fight for the title he believes he has earned a shot for, he’ll have to get one more win against Ellenberger, who got back in the win column in October after a June loss to Kampmann when he took a unanimous decision against Jay Hieron. That win gave him seven in his last eight fights.

In addition to St-Pierre-Diaz, four more of the UFC®’s top-10 welterweights will clash at the Bell Centre while one fighter gets a shot at redemption following a controversial disqualification loss at the same venue just four months removed.

MacDonald will be seeking to avenge the only loss of his career, which came against Condit at UFC 115. In that fight, MacDonald won the first two rounds from two of the three judges and was on his way to winning the fight by split decision had it gone the distance. But Condit came from behind and stopped him with a TKO with just seven seconds left in the fight. Even though Condit is coming off a loss, MacDonald called him out after UFC on FOX 5, saying the loss to him left him humiliated and, even though it was two and a half years ago, he’s been itching for a chance for redemption.

As the UFC 189 tour made its last stop in Dublin, featherweight champ Jose Aldo was met with a torrent of abuse from the Irish fans. It might have been unpleasant, but it might also have been just what he needed.